TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Ed
AU  - Kolko,Jed
AU  - Saiz,Albert
TI  - Consumer City
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7790
PY  - 2000
Y2  - July 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7790
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7790.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Jed Kolko
Trulia
116 New Montgomery St, 3rd floor
San Francisco, CA  94105
E-Mail: jdkolko@yahoo.com

Albert Saiz
Real Estate Department, The Wharton School
UPENN, 1466 Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall
3620 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
E-Mail: saiz@mit.edu
AB  - Urban economics has traditionally viewed cities as having advantages in production and disadvantages in consumption.  We argue that the role of urban density in facilitating consumption is extremely important and understudied.  As firms become more mobile, the success of cities hinges more and more on cities' role as centers of consumption.  Empirically, we find that high amenity cities have grown faster than low amenity cities.  Urban rents have gone up faster than urban wages, suggesting that the demand for living in cities has risen for reasons beyond rising wages.  The rise of reverse commuting suggest the same consumer city phenomena.
ER  -